Great Value Pitcher vs Brita Standard
Bottom line
In our scoring the Brita Standard Pitcher wins at 4.8/10 to the Great Value HS528N's 1.5/10, and the gap is about what can be verified rather than about how either filter performs at the sink. The Brita's certificate is on an accredited registry; the Great Value's claim names nobody, and we found no matching listing as of 2026-06-06 on NSF or WQA. That is a statement about the public record, not a finding that the Great Value pitcher fails to reduce anything - if Walmart published a real certifier and certificate number, its score would rise. One thing worth knowing about the winner too: we found no NSF/ANSI 53 lead listing for the Brita Standard as of 2026-06-01. If lead is your reason for filtering, neither of these is the answer.
These sit a few feet apart at the store, $23 for the Great Value against $36.99 for the Brita, so the fair question is what the cheaper one gives up. The Brita Standard is WQA certified to NSF/ANSI 42 for chlorine and zinc and to NSF/ANSI 53 for copper, cadmium and mercury, certificates listed on a public registry you can check yourself. The Walmart listing for the Great Value HS528N says 'Certified to NSF/ANSI 42&53' but names no certifier, no certificate number and no registry, and when we searched the NSF and WQA databases for HS528N we found no listing as of 2026-06-06. Under our rubric a claim nobody stands behind on a public record earns no certified credit. Walmart also publishes no standalone price for the replacement cartridge, so we cannot compute a cost per gallon for it and leave that as a labeled gap rather than guessing at one.
| 0 certified / 4 marketed | Certified vs marketed contaminants | 5 certified / 5 marketed |
| 0.0 | Verified Contaminant Reduction35% | 1.0 |
| 0.0 | Total Cost of Ownership25% | 6.0 |
| 0.0 | Certification Independence15% | 10.0 |
| 5.0 | Capacity & Flow Fit15% | 5.0 |
| 7.0 | Practical Fit10% | 7.0 |
FAQ
- Is the Great Value Water Filter Pitcher (HS528N) better than the Brita Standard Pitcher?
- In our scoring the Brita Standard Pitcher rates 4.8/10 and the Great Value Water Filter Pitcher (HS528N) 1.5/10. In our scoring the Brita Standard Pitcher wins at 4.8/10 to the Great Value HS528N's 1.5/10, and the gap is about what can be verified rather than about how either filter performs at the sink. The Brita's certificate is on an accredited registry; the Great Value's claim names nobody, and we found no matching listing as of 2026-06-06 on NSF or WQA. That is a statement about the public record, not a finding that the Great Value pitcher fails to reduce anything - if Walmart published a real certifier and certificate number, its score would rise. One thing worth knowing about the winner too: we found no NSF/ANSI 53 lead listing for the Brita Standard as of 2026-06-01. If lead is your reason for filtering, neither of these is the answer.
- Is the Great Value pitcher NSF certified?
- Its Walmart listing says 'Certified to NSF/ANSI 42&53,' but it names no accredited certifier, no certificate number, and links no registry. We searched the NSF and WQA databases for HS528N and found no listing as of 2026-06-06. So we credit it no certification. That is what we could and could not verify, not a measurement of the filter.
- Does the Brita Standard remove lead?
- We found no NSF/ANSI 53 lead listing for it as of 2026-06-01. Its WQA certifications cover chlorine and zinc under NSF/ANSI 42 and copper, cadmium and mercury under NSF/ANSI 53, and we credit only what is certified. Within the same brand, the Elite cartridge is the one that carries lead certification.
- Why is there no cost per gallon for the Great Value pitcher?
- Because no standalone replacement-cartridge price is published anywhere we could source it. The cartridge is rated for 42 gallons and the listing describes it as Brita-compatible, but without a real, dated price we will not compute a cost per gallon. We label the gap instead of estimating, which is also why its total cost of ownership scores zero rather than being guessed upward.